by Victor Poole
She saw they were not ready to kill yet; she thought again of the slavers she had met on the northern roads. The disgruntled slave traders had been just the same type as these men, lazy, deadly sometimes, but slow. She saw that they would not move until they felt like moving. She licked her lips again, and stepped out of the shadows.
Delmar's voice carried to her over the airy space within the temple hall, and she stopped. His words were light, cheerful. He asked about his mother. The two men glanced at each other, and laughed. One of them replied, his voice making a low gravel to Delmar's joyful prattle.
Ajalia sank back into the shadow of the pillar, and listened. She watched the two men, and with a start, she saw that their energy was gradually unspooling; they were no longer thinking of death. Their right shoulders dropped a little, and relaxed. The slight holding in their left palms melted away. Ajalia slipped her dagger back into its casing, and sat down in the shadows to wait. A tight spot of anger lit in her gut, and began to grow, like fire catching in a house of thatch. She saw that Delmar was aware of his powers; she had seen him reaching into the two assassins, tipping apart their weak minds, and kicking aside the clusters of murderous intent that gathered in their loins.
She stretched her head around the pillar, and stared at Delmar. All three men were laughing now; Delmar had begun to tell a long and pathetic story about his inability to get on with the Slavithe boys that lived in the temple. He made himself sound like a mentally unstable puppy; Ajalia saw the two assassins laugh at him, disarmed with his innocence and lack of discretion. Delmar talked about himself as though he had been a child of three; he made himself sound ridiculous. Delmar saw Ajalia; she saw that he saw her, and he made no sign, his lips turned still in an exaggerated pout of irritation. The two men laughed at him; one of them slapped him on the arm. They teased him, and chortled.
Ajalia stopped listening. Rage writhed within her like poison; she had thought, before, that she had been always annoyed with Delmar, but now she hated him with a rancor she was sure would never melt. She would not help him any longer, she resolved, the bitterness of her wrath twisting against her tongue. She shifted to the side, to the shadows against the wall, so that the two assassins would not see her when they left. She leaned her head back against the carved pillar, and began to cry.
Time passed; she had left the two packs in an alley two streets over. She meant to get them, but she was too annoyed to go just now. Calles had wrapped seasoned meats, and thick fists of pastry in her delicate fabrics; Ajalia was sure that Calles had used her embroidered fabric on purpose, so that Ajalia would use the fabric later to sew clothes. Crumbs of the bread, and stains of grease had worked into the fabric. Calles was cunning, Ajalia had thought, when she had first unwrapped the food. Calles had known that Ajalia would have returned the delicate lengths of cloth, but the fabric merchant's wife knew just as well that Ajalia would never return grease-spotted cloth until it had been cleaned. The soiled fabric was like a tender message of friendship. Ajalia thought that Calles meant for her to scrub the fabric, and then to think of keeping it. Perhaps, Ajalia told herself, she was imagining things, and Slavithe women regularly used their painstaking embroidery as napkins.
She heard the footsteps of the assassins passing down the hall, towards the door. She heard them talking to each other in low voices.
"He's like a child," the taller man murmured to the other.
"The Thief Lord is nervous because of the harbor fights," his companion assured him. "He'll calm down next week."
"Can't harm anyone," the first man said, as though trying to convince himself.
"Anyway, we'll come back sometime," the second man agreed.
"Yes, and if they ask, we'll say he wasn't here," the first man said. They passed out of earshot down the stairs of the temple.
Ajalia looked up at Delmar; he had padded silently to the edge of the shadow, and was standing there, staring at her. She glared at him.
"What?" he asked innocently. Her lips curled back in a snarl. She wanted to tell him to go home, but the words would not come out. She wanted to shout at him. She knew her eyes were still a little red from crying. She looked at the inner wall of the temple, and counted the teeth of the dragon that tangled like a thick snake up the corner.
"I left two brown packages under the lid of a barrel," she said at the wall. "Two streets over, in an alley where the street curves." She looked at Delmar, rage in her heart. "Go and get them," she said.
Delmar turned on his heel, and left.
She watched him go, and sighed. Somehow, he had wormed his way back into her innards; she could not get rid of him, she thought. He was like a disease.
A shooting pain ran through her wrist; it was the place her brother had broken her arm. Ajalia told herself she was imagining things, and got to her feet with a sigh. The brown cloak lay about her like a layer of concealing night; she almost hated taking it off. She slipped it down from around her shoulders, and folded it up into a tight curl. Carrying the fold of cloak, she went upstairs to find Daniel.
"Some men came," he burst out with, as soon as he saw her, "and before that, Ocher wanted some papers. I told him you would be back yesterday."
"It took longer than I thought," Ajalia said. She had seen the bearded Ocher come to the temple the day before, his shoulders swinging importantly, and his mouth concealed beneath a firm thicket of hair. "Hide this," she said, giving Daniel the cloak. "Don't let the other boys see it. I need a boy to run down to the east gate, to take my horse and saddle to the stables."
"Isaac can go," Daniel said.
"Tell him to bring the saddle and bridle back here," Ajalia said. "And find Denai sometime."
"He's out," Daniel told her, "but I'll tell him when he gets in." Daniel hesitated, his mouth working. "I didn't like those men," he told her. "They asked for Delmar."
"They were going to kill him," Ajalia told Daniel. Daniel regarded her with solemn eyes. "They didn't," she added. "Go on," she said, and the boy skittered away.
Ajalia went looking for Delmar; she found him lurking near the alley, a hangdog expression in his eyes.
"Are you lost?" she asked him.
"No," he whispered, looking about at the people in the street. "I don't want to give away your hiding place. There are too many people."
Ajalia rolled her eyes. She went into the alley, and shoved aside the lid of the barrel. The wood made a loud scraping noise. She pulled out the packs and shoved them into Delmar's arms.
"Take these back home," she said, replacing the lid.
"Where are you going?" Delmar asked, sounding wounded.
"To see Card," she said, walking out of the alley.
"I'm coming, too," Delmar announced, gripping the brown parcels to his chest, and thrusting his jaw out stubbornly. Ajalia ignored him. She thought that if she ignored him for long enough, he would perhaps begin to bother her a little bit less. By the time they reached the door of the oblong house, she had given up on this notion. Delmar got to her in a way no one else did; he irritated her constantly, and made her aware of things, of herself, of life in a way she had never been aware before. She hated it. She saw him, and the sensations he produced, as a great distraction, a waste of potential energy. She felt that Delmar was negatively impacting her efficiency.
"You don't care about me at all, do you?" Ajalia asked. She had stopped before the door of the house Card was living in, but she had yet to knock. Delmar looked at the house, and then at her.
"Sorry, what did you say?" he asked. His mouth was in an angry line. Ajalia grimaced. She wanted to punch him, but she didn't think it would help.
"I set you up," she said suddenly. "I told your father to kill you."
Delmar looked at her, but he didn't seem to react at all.
"Are you upset?" Ajalia asked. "Are you going to fight with me, or anything?" Delmar looked confused.
"Well," he said, "they didn't kill me." Ajalia studied the sun in Delmar's hair.
"Why are
n't you angry?" she asked. He lifted his shoulders a little.
"You seem to have reasons for doing things," he said. She glared at him. She wished that he would say the wrong thing for once. She wanted to fight with him, to send him home crying to his mother, and he kept on doing or saying just the thing to throw off her anger, just as he had thrown off the murderous intent of those two men.
"Are you trying to manage me?" Ajalia asked sharply. Delmar blinked. He stepped a little back from her.
"No," he said, but she saw that he had been. A renewed wave of seething coursed through her veins.
"Don't," she said shortly, and turned towards the door. She raised her hand to knock; Delmar put a hand around her wrist.
"I love you," he said. She refused to look at him.
"You're a mess," she said.
"That's why you said you were going to change me," Delmar said quickly, "so that I wouldn't be a mess anymore."
She looked swiftly at him; a piercing intelligence was in his eyes. Ajalia ground her teeth. Delmar saw the sharp angle of a muscle shifting in her jaw, and he smiled.
"That means yes," he told her. "If it was no, your face wouldn't change."
"Come on," Ajalia said. She walked away from the oblong house. Delmar trotted after her, the packs clutched under his arms.
"Where are we going?" he asked eagerly. Ajalia glanced at him. She told herself that he wouldn't be so chipper after she had worked over him for an hour or two.
"I'm picking up some female slaves from Card," Ajalia said. "I can't have you around them until you're broken in a little."
Delmar caught up to her, an expression of utmost acuity in the set of his mouth.
"This sounds very exciting," he told her. She wanted to laugh at him, but her heart hurt too much, and she looked away. They came soon to the dragon temple, and Ajalia yelled for Daniel. He came scuttling, followed by three boys with damp rags tied loosely around their necks. The boys had made a game out of the regular cleanings Ajalia had scheduled through the temple; she meant for the golden stone beneath the white surface to be gradually revealed, and she wanted the change to be so gradated that the walls would seem to melt, over time, into molten gold. If the Thief Lord, or any other ranking Slavithe person challenged her over the taboo hue of her interior walls, she planned to excuse herself by saying she had brought in some kind of exotic paint from the East. She doubted such a lie would be believed, but she thought the wealthy Slavithe were too internally repressed to complain to her face. She would be driven out as a witch, she assumed, or she would be ignored as a crazy foreign woman.
"How was Delmar for you?" Ajalia asked Daniel. The other boys grinned at each other, and poked Daniel; he kept a straight face, and lifted his chin towards her.
"Delmar was very well-behaved," Daniel said. The boy's eyes flicked to Delmar; Daniel stifled a smile, and looked back to Ajalia. "He followed directions," Daniel said.
"I was very docile," Delmar said anxiously. Ajalia saw his blue eyes; the Thief Lord's son was watching her as though she were a kind of wizard who could bestow good character on him. She found Delmar's reliance on her exasperating and strangely liberating. He made her feel as though she were floating in a strange world where reality did not quite apply; she had not made up her mind if this was a terrible state of affairs, or somewhat acceptable.
"Bring me paper, and writing things," Ajalia told one of the boys. "You stay," she told Delmar, and sat down on the stone floor of the great hall. The other boys fled; Delmar stood awkwardly with the two brown bundles clasped to his chest. "Sit," Ajalia told him. Delmar sat down hurriedly.
Ajalia took the bundles from him, and unpacked the remainder of the food. She gave it all to Delmar to eat. She was sure that he was hungry, as he always seemed to be.
"First rule," she told him, as she shook out the fabric pieces from the packs, and folded them neatly, "you never contradict me, or interrupt me around other humans."
"Animals are okay, then?" Delmar asked with a half-smile.
"And trees," she agreed, "unless they are talking trees." She watched Delmar eat. His mouth was like a desperate gap of quicksand; he ate as though he were trying to breathe in the food. "Does your mother ever feed you?" she asked suddenly. Delmar shrugged, his mouth busy with a hunk of preserved meat. She wanted to ask him again how old he was.
"Second rule," she continued, her fingers busy over the folds of embroidered cloth, "if you feel your brain turning off, you tell me right away."
Delmar watched her, his eyes like darting fish. He took a deep breath.
"I don't know what you mean," he said, and bit into a tough pastry.
"That is a lie," Ajalia said calmly. Delmar was watching her nervously; she had seen the same expression in the eyes of beaten horses, and frightened slaves. She saw that he was trying to find out if she was safe. "Do you know why I was angry with you?" she asked.
"You were mad?" Delmar asked at once. Ajalia told herself to be patient; she wanted to shout at him, but she pressed her lips together and smiled.
"Just now," she said, "after those two men left the temple, I was upset. Do you know why?"
Delmar watched her, his eyes careful.
"No," he said finally.
"Did you see that I was angry?" she asked. He watched her for a long time.
"Maybe," he admitted.
"Do you want my help?" she asked.
"Yes," he said at once.
"Then stop trying to figure out if I'm rotten inside," she told him. "Did you know I was mad?"
"Yes," he said doubtfully. "I guess." Ajalia studied Delmar's face.
"Do you," she said, "or do you not know when you are putting your energy out into people?" Delmar chewed slowly, and watched her shake out the folded clothes Calles had put into the bottom of the packs. Ajalia thought that Delmar was incredibly stupid, when he was with his family, or away from her for stretches of time. His mind, she thought, had taken several steps backwards from where he had been in the forest.
"Yes?" he said.
Daniel came running towards them, writing materials in his hands.
"You make me tired," Ajalia told Delmar. She took the things from Daniel. "Stay," she told the boy. Daniel sat down quickly.
Ajalia began to write out a basic contract.
"What am I doing right now?" she asked Delmar, her eyes bent to the page.
"Writing," Delmar said.
"Why?" she asked. She glanced up at Delmar, whose lips were parted a little. "Tell him," she told Daniel.
"Written agreements create a third party to the transaction," Daniel said to Delmar. "When the contractual party reneges, the contract forms an invisible witness to the trade, and can be brought to government officials, or to the cheating person's peers, who will shame and punish the person in the wrong."
Delmar blinked.
"You're trapping Ocher," Delmar said. Ajalia wrote out another few lines.
"Sign here," she said, thrusting the pen at Delmar. He looked at her, and at the paper. Slowly, he turned the page to read it. Almost as soon as his eyes took in the first few words, he put the pen down.
"No," he said.
"Why not?" Ajalia asked sharply.
"I'm not going to promise anyone anything about when I'm the Thief Lord," Delmar said angrily. "I haven't even decided if I want to be the Thief Lord." Ajalia watched Delmar regard her indignantly.
"Better," she told him. She tore off the bottom of the paper, where she had written the last lines, and showed Daniel the contract. "Read," she said.
Daniel read the contract out loud. Delmar listened, his jaws working meditatively over the last of the food.
"It's good," he told her, when Daniel had finished. "Vague."
"I made one mistake," Ajalia told him. She was testing him, and watching his eyes. "What was it?"
Delmar took the paper from Daniel. He read it through twice.
"I think it's fine," Delmar said.
"Good," Ajalia said. She signed the b
ottom of the page, and folded it. "Take these to Card," she told Daniel, "and then to Ocher. Bring it back to me when he signs it."
"What if he refuses to let you have it back?" Delmar asked. Ajalia looked at Delmar.
"I told you you weren't stupid," she said. "If Ocher wants a copy of the contract, we will make a copy." And I will know that I'm right about him, Ajalia added to herself. Daniel gathered up the writing things and went out of the great hall.
"I want you," Delmar said, his eyes narrowed, "to stop being so calculating about other men."
Ajalia looked calmly at Delmar, her lips pressed together.
"If you want that," she told him, "you had better become interesting fast."
Delmar jolted a little, as if he had been stung by a bee.
"You're being very rude all of a sudden," he complained.
"You left me," she told him.
"I did not," he said.
"Now we are starting over," she said, "but this time I know you lie and cheat."
"I do not lie!" Delmar said hotly.
"Now," Ajalia said, standing up and gazing down thoughtfully at Delmar, who was sitting on the wide white floor, "what are we going to do about your clothes?"
"My clothes?" Delmar asked in alarm. His arms moved close to his body, his eyes flicking nervously at Ajalia, and the layers of softly embroidered cloth in her arms. Please don't embarrass me, Delmar's eyebrows said.
"Your clothes are awful," Ajalia said kindly. "You look like an overgrown toddler whose mother hates him. And the colors don't match," she added critically.
"But everything is brown!" Delmar wailed.
"Come on," Ajalia said, smiling. "Let's do some shopping."
Delmar suffered greatly in the process, but when the evening had fallen, and he stood beside Ajalia before the door of the oblong house, the Thief Lord's eldest son looked like a different man. His hair had been cut in closer to his face, and he wore a long green tunic over pants and boots that were, Ajalia was sure, far superior to anything that had ever touched his skin. She had pierced one of his ears, and hung a red stone on a tiny gold loop there.